After the election this past Tuesday, Americans have been reacting to Donald Trump’s win. Basketball coaches are one group that have decided to weigh in.
NBA coaches, Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich have made comments in regard to the election and haven’t held back. Now that college basketball is underway, Louisville’s Rick Pitino and Texas’s Shaka Smart are speaking out about president-elect Trump’s win.
Smart laid out how he felt in plain words. No beating around the bush here when he spoke to the Austin American-Statesman .
“When someone is elected who has a history of being hateful, of being racist, of being sexist, of saying certain things that are derogatory toward a certain group, it feels like a slap in the face, that’s how some of [our players] felt. But you know what? We’re going to have to move forward. They’re not going to do another election. It is what it is, and we have to respond the right way. … Our country’s spoken. America’s got some issues. But this is not surprising based on the history of America.”
Pitino wasn’t nearly as critical as Smart but had his own thoughts about Trump and social media.
“He’s our elected president, and you can protest all you want, he’s not resigning. Look, I’ve got problems with him like everybody does. Everybody in this room has problems with him. And I think the only way to remedy a problem is to find a solution. The first thing I said in the show is, look, I’m going to support the president. Call up John McCain, apologize and then publicly apologize. Because that has upset me since day one. That man was five years in solitary confinement and was beaten. He’s a hero to all of us, and he needs to be apologized to first. … And everybody insulted needs an apology. Then you start fresh and get support.
“Look, I know a lot of people — he belongs to the same club in New York as I do, and a lot of people think he’s a good guy. He had to try to win an election. I wouldn’t want to win in that way, but he had to try to do it, I guess. But the most important thing now is whoever he insulted, call them up and apologize. And then start fresh with everybody. But the first phone call has got to be to those two families. You just gotta call them, because you made a mistake. And he’s not a politician so he’s gonna make these mistakes.
“He should be part of the Louisville basketball team and lose his Twitter account. He should join our team and lose that Twitter account. And then he just needs to call those people up. Start fresh, apologize to anyone he insulted from the Mexican community, say it wasn’t meant. People, when you apologize and you really mean it, they forgive you. But if you don’t apologize, they don’t forget.”
Pitino seems a bit more open to his presidency but feels as if Trump needs to repent for his idiocy.
There is a reason many were warned as children to never talk about religion and politics, it can throw people into a tizzy. However, as the nation faces a critical moment the discussions shouldn’t be stopped, they should be magnified. Divisiveness can lead to further conflict, in these comments you can see that these various leaders hope that the nation can come together.
The question is, how do we make it happen?
